10th Annual Hawke Lecture
Consensus and Dissent in Australia
With The Hon Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG
Wednesday 10 October 2007
Bob Hawke was famous for his commitment to a search for consensus in politics and in industrial relations. It was the theme of his Boyer Lectures and a feature of his leadership of the union movement and the nation.
This year's Hawke Lecturer, Justice Kirby, has the highest dissenting rate in the history of the High Court, even out-flanking the dissents of Justice Issacs, Justice Evatt and Justice Murphy. In his Hawke Lecture, Justice Kirby will explore consensus and dissent in society. When is it appropriate, in the law and in the community, to seek agreement? And when do we have to stand up and disagree? By reference to law and life, this year's Annual Hawke Lecture will examine consensus and dissent in Australia.
Biography
Justice Michael Kirby of the High Court of Australia. Justice Kirby is now the longest serving judicial officer in the nation. He was first sworn in as a Deputy President of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in December 1974. In February 1975 he was appointed inaugural chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission. He held that post until 1984.
In 1983, he was appointed by the Hawke Government a judge of the Federal Court of Australia. In 1984 he was appointed President of the NSW Court of Appeal, the busiest appellate court in Australia. In 1996 he was appointed one of the seven Justices of the High Court.
Justice Kirby has also served in many international bodies. He was Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for Human Rights in Cambodia; a member of the Global Commission on AIDS of WHO; a member of the ILO Mission to South Africa on its Labour Laws 1992; and President of the International Commission of Jurists.
Currently he serves as a member of the UNAIDS Global Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights and as a member of the Judicial Integrity Group of UNODC.
Famously, he gives his recreation as work but lately he has begun to ponder life after the High Court which he must leave early in 2009.
Published copies of the Annual Hawke Lecture series are available from the Hawke Centre.
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